The conventional wisdom in Washington is that Whitewater’s dead, at least for this election season. White House aides are elated at a Little Rock jury’s acquittal of two Arkansas bankers on four felony counts. Deputy counsel Bruce Lindsey, reportedly the president’s closest friend in the White House, had been an officially designated “unindicted co-conspirator” in an alleged conspiracy to conceal large cash withdrawals by Bill Clinton’s 1990 gubernatorial campaign. But Lindsey’s principal accuser, Neal T. Ainley, bombed during testimony, and several jurors told reporters that none of them believed Ainley at all.
End of story? Hardly. According to the New York Times, the Whitewater jurors didn’t trust Lindsey, either. One of them, Mary M. Zinamon, told the Times that Lindsey’s testimony “was the same as Ainley’s.” She “didn’t believe a thing [Lindsey] was saying” because it “just didn’t make sense.” Another juror, Betty I. Sweeden, said none of the jurors believed Lindsey. And USA Today now reports that jurors say they would have convicted Lindsey of conspiracy had he actually been on trial.
Now attorneys in the Whitewater prosecutor’s office are telling people they will consider issuing new indictments as late as the end of September — for almost another two months, in other words — before suspending public activity during the presidential election. They have hired another prosecutor to look at the behavior of Lindsey and other White House staffers. And they have designated a prosecutor in Little Rock to focus on Mrs. Clinton’s pre- Washington activities. Convicted Whitewater felon James McDougal, USA Today reveals, “has been talking to Whitewater prosecutors in advance of his sentencing.”
Once again, the conventional wisdom may prove to be wrong.
